Cortland County, New York

• Income gap: Households earn meaningfully less than the national median, which directly affects retail demand, housing absorption, and tax base.
• Below the state median: Median household income runs $15,556 (18.1%) under the New York median, so statewide income averages overstate local household buying power.
• Cost of living erodes income: Local prices run 7.9% above the national average, so the nominal median of $70,418 is worth $65,262 at national average prices. BEA publishes price parity at state level, not county level.
• Talent gap: Bachelor's-or-higher attainment trails the national average by 6.6 pts, relevant for advanced-services attraction strategy.

• Largest private-sector industry: Health Care and Social Assistance employs 2,772 workers (22.6% of tracked sectors), at an average wage of $63,279. Every industry figure on this page is private sector; government employs a further 4,040 and is counted separately.
• Economic scale: Regional GDP of $2.4B (2024).
• Wage stratification: Wholesale Trade averages $79,601 while Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation averages $22,321, a 3.6x spread in the same local economy, with implications for workforce development and talent strategy.

• Top specialization: Animal Production and Aquaculture concentrates at 9.46x the national norm, top-decile concentration, the kind of signature sector that defines a region's economic identity to site selectors.
• Cluster depth: 12 sub-sectors register LQ ≥ 1.5, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 45.5% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Demand reaches this base from more than one market rather than from a single one.
• Attraction whitespace: 4 sub-sectors register LQ < 0.5 with at least 50 employed, candidates for diversification or recruitment depending on labor-market fit.

• Affordable market: Home value to income ratio of 2.3x is well below the ~4.1x national average; supports talent attraction and family settlement narratives.
• Affordable rent tiers: 2 of 5 HUD Fair Market Rent bedroom sizes sit below what a household on the median renter income of $42,202 can pay without cost burden (~$1,055/mo), and 46% of renter households are measured as cost-burdened.

• Healthy participation: 62.4% labor force participation reflects a steady, available local workforce.
• Talent pipeline: 1 institution in Cortland County awards 1,744 credentials a year. Employers drawing from a wider labor shed should read this alongside institutions outside the county, which this page does not aggregate.

Cortland County shows strong potential for animal production and aquaculture attraction, with a 9.46x concentration and 258 jobs in this sub-sector. It ranks in the top decile nationally.

The concentrated base spans animal production and aquaculture, amusement, gambling, and recreation industries, and fabricated metal product manufacturing, and no single source of demand accounts for more than 45.5% of the employment across them, the largest being visitor economy. Supply-chain recruitment has more than one demand base to work from.